Marking the Text
Expository Text Annotation
1.
Pre-Reading
• Read the title and headings (if any). Make a prediction about the author’s purpose. Is it to
entertain, persuade, or inform? Write your prediction in the left-hand margin next to the title. End your
prediction with a question mark.
• Number the paragraphs. If the text is only one paragraph, number the sentences.
2. Reading
• Read the text, highlighting words you don’t know. Write definitions in the right-hand margin.
• Circle key terms, cited authors or works, and other essential words or numbers. Define key terms and
explain cited authors/works in the right-hand margin.
• Circle ideas you don’t understand. Write questions about what you don’t understand in the righthand margin.
• Using the Rhetorical Précis “How” handout, identify what claim is being made. Write what the
claim is at the top of the page. If you thing there is more than one claim, write them both and
identify each on the page.
• Continuing to use the How” handout, put a star and [brackets] around each rhetorical appeal
• Put an asterisk next to any figure of speech, such as a metaphor, repetition, hyperbole (exaggeration), or
analogy. Identify the figure of speech in the right-hand margin.
• Underline the points that seem to be main ideas.
• Find the thesis, draw a box around it, and write “thesis” next to it in the right-hand margin.
3. Post-Reading
• Go back to the main ideas you underlined. Do they support the thesis? Draw squiggly lines under any
that do not support the thesis.
• Identify the tone (attitude) and write it in the left-hand margin next to words, phrases, or sentences that
reveal them. For example, does the author use a formal, humorous, sarcastic, or contemptuous tone?
(See the reverse side for more examples of tone.) Keep in mind that tone is often revealed by the use of
figures of speech like repetition, metaphor, or hyperbole.
• Identify the audience, or the reader the author wants to reach. Is the author writing for an educated,
voting, adult audience? For young people? For parents? For school administrators? For politicians or
policy-makers?
• Go back to your prediction about the author’s purpose. Were you correct? Write the author’s purpose
in the left-hand margin under your prediction. Be specific. For example, you might write, “The author’s
purpose is to inform (write in the audience you identified) about …” or “The author’s purpose is to
persuade … to …”
•
Lastly, write a simple point of view statement at the bottom of the document. Point-of-View
(POV) Statement
The POV statement is one complete sentence. There are 2 major steps in creating a POV Statement. The first is to
break down the essential parts of the document and author. Using the Declaration of Independence as an example,
the POV statement should contain the following things:
1. The Author(s): Thomas Jefferson
2. Identity / Occupation of the Author: Member of 2nd Continental Congress / Lawyer
3. Central Belief(s): Equality / Human Rights / Self Governance
4. Why the Document was Written: To legitimize and present evidence for the American Colonies to
legally separate from Great Britain.
The second part is take these 4 parts and combine them into 1 complete sentence.
POV Statement = Thomas Jefferson, the young lawyer who wrote the Declaration of Independence at the
request of the 2nd Continental Congress, outlines both the colonists call for equality and the reasons for their
separation from Great Britain.